Routine Delivery Turned Nightmare for Student Trustee
By Maura Corkery
Jeffrey Fang’s Saturday routine working as a DoorDash driver was horribly interrupted on the evening of Feb. 6 when, while completing one of many deliveries, a strange man climbed into Fang’s unlocked minivan and drove away with Fang’s two young children in the back.
At approximately 8:45 p.m., Fang, a San Francisco resident and City College student trustee, parked his Honda Odyssey in a driveway on the 2100 block of Jackson St. in Pacific Heights, but left the motor running; his 4-year-old daughter Winnifred and 1-year-old son Sean waited in the back seat. In the minute or so that he was gone, Fang said, a stranger jumped into the car.
“I approached him and opened my car … I yelled at him and told him to get out and two of my kids are in the car,” Fang told ABC. His children, who “only speak Mandarin,” had no idea what was happening as the driver sped off.
The police response was immediate and extensive. The California Highway Patrol issued an Amber Alert in San Francisco and four additional Bay Area counties, and the SFPD motorcycle unit conducted a city-wide block-by-block sweep. In addition, the department’s entire swing shift of 100 personnel was put on overtime to assist the investigation, according to San Francisco Chief of Police Chief Bill Scott.
Fang’s van was found at 1 a.m. on Feb. 7, with the children still inside, parked on the 2400 block of Fitzgerald Ave. in the Bayview District. After a reportedly uneventful medical evaluation at SF General Hospital, Fang and his wife were able to take their children home.
At the time of this article’s publication, police had yet to identify a suspect in the theft.